Historically, parts or components stamped from sheets or ribbons of steel were hand-ground to remove sharp edges and burrs produced during the stamping process. Later, with the advent of power equipment, workers individually removed sharp edges and burrs from the stamped products using grinding and wire wheels. Although the advent of the power equipment expedited the process, parts or components were still being worked on individually on a piece-by-piece basis by a worker in a factory.
Continued technological advances in machinery, stamped components of the same pattern or design were stacked in magazines wherein a shuttle would remove a part from an end of the magazine and slide the component along the surface of a grinding belt to deburr the surface of the component facing the grinding belt surface. Water would be sprayed on the components as they pass along the belt to act as a coolant and remove the swarf from the belt during the process. At the end of the process, the component was discharged onto a ramp where the component was then stacked manually by the operator so the components could be moved on to the next station.
A disadvantage with this process was that the shuttle placed no force on the component which was perpendicular to the direction of travel to ensure that the component had been fully deburred. Because the grinding belt ran in a direction opposite to the translation followed by the shuttle, occasionally the component would be rocked up on edge such that deburring occurred only along a portion of the surface rather than along the entire lower surface. This resulted in poor quality and the occasional need to reverse the orientation of the part in the magazine to deburr the side that was missed. Furthermore, occasionally components would slide under the shuttle, either causing a jam of the grinding belt and ultimate destruction of the belt, or colliding with the subsequent component and cause a disruption of the grinding process. Furthermore, the parts or components needed to be loaded in a magazine which required manual labor and reduced the efficiency and throughput of the components through the grinding machine.
Accordingly, there has been a long-felt yet unresolved need to produce a machine which efficiently and thoroughly deburrs the entire surface of a stamped product wherein the components are positively retained and moved through the grinding process and wherein the production rate is substantially uninterrupted as a result of an operator need to load magazines and the like. The assembly described below, and embodying the invention, satisfies this need.